


wiser in the morning

by youaremarvelous



Series: Yuri!!! on Ice Tumblr Drabbles [12]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Drabble, Hair Washing, M/M, Viktor trying to help Yuuri realize his own worth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-25
Updated: 2018-03-25
Packaged: 2019-04-07 23:06:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14091684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youaremarvelous/pseuds/youaremarvelous
Summary: It was normal to record practice for at-home review, but the way Yuuri conducted his criticism—disgusted and frustrated, like an auctioneer appraising a past market cow—wasn’t.Viktor wishes he could unspool Yuuri’s mind like he used to his old tapes, dip a cotton swab in isopropyl alcohol and swab away the murky layers of dust and debris preventing Yuuri from seeing his own worth with sparkling clarity.He can’t so he hides the laptop in the oven, instead, and offers to wash Yuuri’s hair after practice.





	wiser in the morning

**Author's Note:**

> for the [prompt](http://youremarvelous.tumblr.com/post/171836974478/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-number-and-ill-write-you) “I wish you could see yourself the way I see you.”

It’s half past three when Viktor feels the mattress dip beside him, the shift of sheets across his back. He opens his eyes to watch the folded line of Yuuri’s spine dissolve into the darkness—the image of him pale and indistinct as a specter. Viktor spreads his hand over the empty spot left behind to feel the heat of Yuuri’s presence seeped into the mattress with the smell of his grocery store shampoo. **  
**

 

He waits a moment, and listens. The heat turns on, then shuts off, and all Viktor can make out is the electric hum of purposed silence, pressing against his ears like a pair of hands. He gets up from bed. The sound of his movement is garish in comparison, and it isn’t lost on him, Yuuri’s ability to make so little of himself.  

 

Viktor finds Yuuri at the kitchen table where he expects, which might be a relief but isn’t. Yuuri’s fingers are snarled into his hair— his knuckles tinged blue in the laptop light when he pulls it taut, clenches his teeth into his lower lip.  

 

“Dove,” Viktor says, touching his index finger to the back of the laptop, closing it just enough to hide the screen but preserve the illumination. “It’s late. Let’s go back to bed.”

 

Yuuri moves his hands to his eyes—to rub them, or maybe to hide them. “Just a few more minutes.”

 

“Okay—” Viktor pulls out the neighboring chair—“I’ll stay up with you, and we can go together.”

 

Yuuri spent a significant number of his twilight hours in Detroit away from his dorm, breathing and pacing and binging off vending machine snacks in abandoned interstices across campus to prevent disturbing Phichit’s sleep. He couldn’t accept sacrifices being made for him then, and he can’t now.

 

Yuuri closes the laptop the rest of the way, watches the green light of the smoke detector until faint impressions of his surroundings emerge from the dark. Viktor’s fingers are wrapped around his forearm, his thumb strumming the tendons on the underside of Yuuri’s wrist so gently that he doesn’t notice till he sees him doing it.

 

Viktor folds himself around Yuuri in bed. He pushes his perpetually cold hands up under Yuuri’s shirt, tucks his feet between his legs, kisses the nape of his neck over and over—even when the baby hairs there tickle his nose.

 

It was normal to record practice for at-home review. Viktor has been doing it since he was a kid and first entering the figure skating competitive circuit. He had perfected his quad salchow by sitting crossed-legged in front of his family’s big screen, obsessively rewinding cassette tapes of his performances till the magnetic signal was lost to friction—splintering the image in webs of white static.

 

It was normal, but the way Yuuri conducted his criticism—disgusted and frustrated, like an auctioneer appraising a past market cow—wasn’t. Viktor has been cited as a perfectionist in at least six publications—admitted it himself in at least three more—but even he can’t see what has Yuuri shaking his foot under the table, creasing his eyes and carving his mouth around an unspoken, self-aimed admonishment when the miniature reflection of himself lands out of a quad toe loop and bends into a flying sit spin.

 

Viktor wishes he could unspool Yuuri’s mind like he used to his old tapes, dip a cotton swab in isopropyl alcohol and swab away the murky layers of dust and debris preventing Yuuri from seeing his own worth with sparkling clarity.

 

He can’t so he hides the laptop in the oven, instead, and offers to wash Yuuri’s hair after practice.

 

“So, anyway, the point is I burned the rice,” Yuuri recalls his first attempt at congee, laughing. His knees are pulled to his chest, his raw, swollen nail beds hidden between the juncture of his calves and thighs.

 

Viktor kneads his most expensive shampoo into Yuuri’s scalp—the one that comes in a tub with a gold label and smells like prickly pear and shea. “You…how?”

 

“Specifically, it caught on fire.”

 

Viktor piles Yuuri’s hair in the center like a mohawk. “Lucky for you, I love burnt rice.”

 

Yuuri tips his head back and a soapy rivulet of water trails down his neck, pooling in the shallow pocket of his clavicle. “Yeah?”

 

“It’s my favorite,” Viktor says, dabbing a dollop of foam on the tip of Yuuri’s nose.

 

He wraps Yuuri in a towel when the soap is rinsed away and dries his hair in front of the bathroom mirror, watches the precious landscape of Yuuri’s scalp like the orange and yellow constellations of St. Petersburg at night, blinking up at his plane window.   

 

They end up taking the laptop out of the oven to watch funny dog compilations on Youtube. Yuuri sits in Viktor’s lap—the laptop balanced on his knees. Every time he laughs, the screen shakes so much the video blurs.

 

Yuuri performs his new routine flawlessly the next day. Even he looks pleased—his fist balled near his hip, his shoulders square and relaxed.

 

Viktor falls out of his triple axel for the first time in months, but he doesn’t care.

 

He loves Yuuri too much.  

 

He wouldn’t change a thing.  

**Author's Note:**

> Rebloggable [here](http://youremarvelous.tumblr.com/post/172172462668/65-or-74-for-writing-prompts)


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